The Writing Life: Sheer Glamor

When Carrie Bradshaw on Sex and the City had her book-release party, the whole city turned out. She had a new dress, new shoes, a new hairdo. People drank champagne and ate caviar. She was the queen of the world for that day.

My booksignings are not quite like that. When Stories Grandma Never Told came out, the book was introduced at the Dia de Portugal celebration at San Jose Historical Museum. We stood in a booth outside, thronged by fans all day. My aunt brought me a malasada—Portuguese donut. I probably brought my own iced tea. I had help from two reps from the publishing house, and we sold dozens of books. That was the best.

For the next signing, at a bookstore in Willow Glen, I attracted about four people, two of whom bought books. At another event in Stockton, I sold one book, to the other author sharing my table.

The first event for my new book, Shoes Full of Sand, was actually better than average. It started out rough. Everything I touched getting ready, I knocked over or spilled. As I walked out the door, juggling a box of books, my purse, and a grocery bag with tea, an apple and a box of granola bars, something dripped on my pants. I attributed it to morning dew from the rosemary bush. But there were more drips when I arrived at the shopping center in Newport.

My feet thundered over the wooden planks of this nautical-themed center with more empty shops than functioning ones. Irish folk music wafted from speakers tucked into the eaves, and the neon bookstore sign said “Open.” Passing a gift shop and a hair salon, I pushed into the bookstore, scanning the window and the nearly bare bulletin board for some sign of my appearance. Nothing.

Inside, a brown card table and a single chair awaited me. “Hi, Sue,” said Bill, the owner, rushing forward to relieve me of my box of books and postcards. “Would you like some book stands?” Yes.

I reached into my cloth grocery bag and felt wetness. My tea had leaked all over, soaking the box of granola bars and the flyer I had brought to hang up for my writing group event. Now I had a wet hand, a wet chair, and was in danger of soaking the wooden floor. I went to Bill’s “back room,” a cubbyhole full of office supplies, coffee, mini fridge and such. A package of white napkins sat on the top shelf. As I reached for one, a dozen fluttered to the floor around me. Sigh. As I picked them up, I noticed a Cheerio sitting amid the dust and dirt. Nice.

I didn’t sit down for a while. It wasn’t as if people were waiting to meet me. It was just me and Bill. The bookstore owner is in his early 70s, grizzled, skinny, missing a lower front tooth, a bit of southern in his accent. He’s a talker. His first wife was Portuguese, so he always wants to talk about that. His father died in February, and he needed to tell the whole gory story. But his stories are good, and it was something to do while I avoided my damp folding chair and waited for my fans to show up.

The bookstore used to occupy a bigger space in the same center. But sales went sour with the advent of the Internet and the crash of the economy, so Bill moved into this much smaller space. As he continued the story of his life, I eased into my folding chair.

People did come, not the people who told me they were coming, but people. The owner of the center’s Champagne Patio restaurant, a Swiss guy named Joseph, not only bought a book but invited me to come by afterward for a free lunch. He sent other people to meet me and buy books. My shrink came and bought a copy of the new book. Another woman bought Freelancing for Newspapers for her boyfriend. Tourists, friends of Bill, and strangers bought books. Eight in all. My ego was pleasantly fluffed.

The hours squeaked by. My stomach grumbled. Down to my last books, I began to worry that I might run out. But I had just enough. Bill and I toted up our sales and he wrote me a check. I did some quick math. I hated to say it, but something was wrong. He refigured and discovered he had given me 40 percent instead of 60 percent. As he wrote a new check, he said, “I can see you’re a hard woman to cheat. My first wife was like that. I don’t know if it’s the Portuguese . . .”

No, it’s math, Bill.

A couple minutes after 2, I left with my box of remaining books, my soggy bag and my overstuffed purse, passed the beauty parlor, now closed, and the gift shop and put my stuff in the car. I had an appointment at 3, so I had to decline the Champagne Patio lunch.

Instead, I stuffed down a Burger King guacamole burger and French fries while being stared at by a young woman playing with a gray cat on a leash.

I think, if I remember correctly, Carrie Bradshaw, went home with a handsome man and had sex while somebody else dealt with books and money. Burger King and soggy granola bars never entered the picture.

What is that green stuff they put in the burger anyway? It can’t be avocado.

Copyright 2011 Sue Fagalde Lick

Author: Sue Fagalde Lick

writer/musician California native, Oregon resident Author of Freelancing for Newspapers, Shoes Full of Sand, Azorean Dreams, Stories Grandma Never Told, Childless by Marriage, and Up Beaver Creek. Most recently, I have published two poetry chapbooks, Gravel Road Ahead and The Widow at the Piano: Confessions of a Distracted Catholic. I have published hundreds of articles, plus essays, fiction and poetry. I'm also pretty good at singing and playing guitar and piano. View all posts by Sue Fagalde Lick